Humdinger of a Hootenanny (Batch 345)

I brewed on a snowy Sunday this past weekend.

Due to poor planning, this was probably my worst brew day in awhile, but a bad brew day is better than a good work-day, so it was still pretty good.

I'm sure the beer will still turn out great.

If you read this blog and are able to remember, you may know what I was planning on brewing next as I mentioned it in Roll-a-Style 9 ... Historical Beer: Kentucky Common.

This was my 345th batch ever. My 20th of 2023. My 63rd batch of beer brewed in my Anvil Foundry.

It was a new recipe, my 222nd unique recipe since I started brewing beer (if I am counting correctly).

Humdinger of a Hootenanny

Because of the weekend snow, I brewed in the garage. I actually did an overnight mash, but didn't actually reduce my mash time Sunday morning.

So, I didn't save any time doing the overnight mash.

The first mistake I made was forgetting to add grits to my mash. By the time I remembered the grits, I was well into mash-out range, so I decided to add table sugar to make up those gravity points.

I'll use those grits sometime in the future.

Actually, that wasn't the first mistake I made, it was the first one I discovered.

My first mistake was that I didn't make sure that my hoses that I would use for chilling had been drained. So ... they were actually frozen.

Actually, I couldn't even find a couple of the garden hoses as they were buried in snow. Don't ask me why they were in the yard rather than by the house where I usually keep them.

I brought one of the hoses into the garage in hopes that it would thaw out during the mash and boil. I didn't.

I accepted that my chilling would not be optimal, and I thought because it was so cold out, I could use the pond pump to get the wort chilled most of the way and then just use ambient cold to cool the rest of the way.

But, as I was setting up my pond pump, the plastic nozzle connecting the pump to the hose snapped.

So ... to chill, I pumped the hot wort into my Anvil Stainless Bucket Fermenter. I set up my cooling system to pump ice water through the wort, but I'm not sure that really helped at all.

When it comes right down to it, I think the cold air was what cooled the wort.

It took until after 2pm before I could pitch the yeast, but it did get down to the lower 60's.

I did do a starter, and as a result the fermentation took off before the evening. So, that was better than usual.

It's been going strong for a few days. I expect I'll keg around the 11th of November.

I actually don't think the long chilling process will cause problems. It might end up being a little more bitter than expected, but it wasn't going to be real bitter anyway, so I think it will be fine.

I guess we'll see.

Keep an eye on Sheppy's Blog: Humdinger, and I'll try to let you know how it turned out.

As always, stay tuned on the regular SheppyBrew Channels to see what is happening with beer and other things: SheppyBrew's Facebook Page; Sheppy's Twitter Feed; SheppyBrew's Instagram Page; and SheppyBrew's Website.

Go Blackhawks!